TYPOGRAPHIA 


Ex  LibrisJ. BURKE 


<7 

University  of  California  •  Berkeley 
PAULINE  FORE  MOFFITT  LIBRARY 


/ 


T??  CENTU  RY 


ILLUSTRATED  MONTHLY 


MAGAZINE. 


Mayl88$,1o  October  1888 


T9?  CENTURY  C9 ,    NEW-YORK. 

T.FISHERUNWIN,  LONDON. 
Vol.  XXXVT.  NevSeries  Vbt.XIK 


Copyright,  1888,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co. 


THE  DE  VINNE  PRESS. 


A    PRINTER'S    PARADISE. 


THE     PLANTIN-MORETUS     MUSEUM     AT     ANTWERP. 


HE  modern  print- 
ing-office is  not 
at  all  picturesque. 
Whether  it  be  old, 
with  grimy  hand- 
presses  and  dingy 
types,  or  new, 
with  huge  iron 
machines  and 
long  lanes  of 
cases  and  stones, 
it  does  not  invite 
the  artistic  pencil.  Without  doubt  the  cradle 
of  books,  but  can  one  see  any  poetry  about  the 
cradle  ?  The  eye  is  confused  with  strange 

'I 


sights;  the  ear  is  jarred  with  harsh  noise ;  the 
air  itself  is  heavy  with  odors  of  ink  and  oil  and 
wet  paper.  Nor  does  the  imagination  expand 
in  the  office  of  the  manager,  in  which  the  prom- 
inent objects  are  always  chairs  and  desks,  and 
a  litter  of  ragged  papers  and  well-thumbed 
books  —  all  prosaic  and  factory -like. 

Was  it  always  so  ?  No  one  knows  of  the  in- 
terior of  Gutenberg's  office  in  the  Zum  Jut/gen 
house  at  Mayence,  for  no  artist  in  his  day  or 
ours  has  found  in  it  any  beauty  to  be  pre- 
served; but  we  do  know  that  this  birthplace 
of  a  great  art  is  now  a  beer-shop,  in  which  for 
a  few  pfennigs  one  may  get  a  refreshment  for 
the  body  not  to  be  had  for  the  mind.  The 


VOL.  XXXVI.— 32. 


THE     FRONT    OF     THE     MUSEUM. 


226 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


GUTENBERG  S    OFFICE    AT    MAYENCE. 

fate  that  fell  on  Gutenberg's  office  has  fallen 
on  the  offices  of  Aldus  and  the  Stephens  and 
the  Elzevirs.  Not  a  vestige  of  office  fittings  or 
working  material  remains. 

ThePlantin-Moretus  Museum  at  Antwerp  is 
the  only  printing-house  that  has  been  left  in- 
tact as  the  monument  of  a  great  departed  bus- 
iness. How  well  it  was  worth  having  may  be 
inferred  from  the  price  of  twelve  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  paidfor  it  bythecity,in  1876, to  the 
last  member  of  the  family  of  the  founder.  How 
well  it  is  worth  seeing  is  proved  by  the  steady 
tide  of  visitors  that  pass  through  it 
every  day.  Here  is  a  printing-house 
that  is  not  a  factory — a  house  that 
has  been  as  much  the  home  of  art 
and  education  as  a  place  for  work 
and  trade. 

It  is  not  an  imposing  structure. 
No  public  building  in  Antwerp  is 
more  unpretentious  as  to  its  exteri- 
or. Its  dull  front  on  the  Marche  du 
Vendredi  gives  but  one  indication 
of  the  treasures  behind  the  walls.  To 
him  who  can  read  it,  the  little  tablet 
over  the  door  is  enough  to  tell  the 
story;  for  it  is  the  device  of  Chris- 
topher Plantin,  "  first  printer  to  the 
king,  and  the  king  of  printers." 
Here  is  the  hand  emerging  from  the 
clouds,  holding  a  pair  of  compasses, 
one  leg  at  rest  and  one  describing  a 
circle ;  here  is  the  encircling  legend 
of  Lahore  et  Constantia.  Heraldry  is 
overfull  of  devices  that  are  as  arro- 
gant as  they  are  absurd,  but  no  one 
dare  say  that  Plantin  did  not  fairly 
earn  the  right  to  use  the  motto  of 
labor  and  patience. 

Plantin  deserved  remembrance 
from  Antwerp.  He  did  much  for 
its  honor,  although  he  was  not  of 
Flemish  birth.  Born  in  France,  about 
1514,  taught  printing  and  book- 


binding at  Caen,  he  should  have  been  by  right, 
and  would  have  been  by  choice,  a  worthy  suc- 
cessor to  the  printers  of  Paris  who  did  admira- 
ble work  during  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  But  his  most  Christian  majesty  Henry 
II.  of  France  had  begun  his  reign  in  1547 
with  the  announcement  that  he  should  pun- 
ish heresy  as  worse  than  treason.  What  a 
drag-net  was  this  word  heresy  for  the  en- 
tanglement of  printers !  Stephen  Dolet,  most 
promising  of  all,  had  been  recently  burned  at 
the  stake;  Robert  Stephens,  weary  of  end- 
less quarrels  with  meddlesome  ecclesiastics., 
was  meditating  the  flight  he  soon  afterward 
made  to  Geneva.  To  those  who  could  read 
the  signs  of  the  times,  there  were  even  then 
forewarnings  of  the  coming  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew.  France  was  a  good  country 
for  a  printer  to  leave,  and  Plantin  did  wisely 
to  forsake  Paris  in  1548  and  to  make  his 
home  in  Antwerp. 

Not  so  large  as  Paris  or  London,  Antwerp 
was  superior  in  wealth  and  commerce,  as  well 
as  in  its  artistic  development.  Printing  was 
under  restraint  here,  as  it  was  everywhere ;  but 
the  restraints  were  endurable,  and  printers 
were  reasonably  prosperous.  Antwerp  encour- 
aged immigration.  One  of  the  most  interest- 
ing of  the  many  paintings  in  its  Hotel  de 


A    TRADE-MARK. 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


227 


Ville  is  that  of  the  ceremonious  naturalization 
of  an  Italian  and  his  family  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  It  was  as  the  principal  in  a  similar 
ceremony  that  Plantin  became  a  citizen  in 
1550,  and  was  enrolled  as  a  printer. 

With  little  money  and  few  friends,  Plantin 
had  to  struggle  to  keep  his  foot-hold  in  a  city 
that  had  already  been  well  served  by  many 
master  printers.  It  did  not  appear  that  he 
was  needed  at  all  as  a  printer.  So  Plantin 


printing-office.  In  that  year  he  published  two 
little  books,  cautiously  dividing  the  risk  with 
other  publishers.  It  must  have  been  difficult  to 
get  books  that  were  salable,  for  his  first  book  * 
was  in  Italian  and  French,  his  second  in 
Spanish,  his  third  in  French, —  clear  evidences 
all  that  there  were  in  Antwerp  already  printers 
before  him  who  had  published  all  the  books 
called  for  in  Flemish. 

But  Plantin  went  to  Antwerp  to  stay.   In 


PAINTING    IN    H6TEL    DE    VILLE  —  ITALIAN    FAMILY    TAKING    THE    OATH    OF    ALLEGIANCE.       (LAST    PAINTING    BY    HENRI      LEYS.) 


must  have  thought,  for  he  avoided  printing, 
and  opened  a  shop  in  which  he  sold  prints 
and  books,  and  his  wife  sold  haberdashery. 
To  fill  up  unemployed  time  he  bound  books 
and  decorated  jewel-boxes.  At  this  work  he 
prospered,  and  soon  earned  a  reputation  as 
the  most  skillful  decorator  in  the  city.  Before 
he  was  fairly  established  he  met  a  great  mis- 
fortune. Encountered  on  a  dark  night  by  a 
ruffian  who  mistook  him  for  another,  Plantin 
was  dangerously  stabbed,  and  forever  disabled 
from  handling  gilding-tools.  The  possible 
rivalry  that  might  have  arisen  between  him 
and  the  artistic  book-binders  of  Paris  was  ef- 
fectually prevented.  He  had  to  begin  anew, 
but  it  was  more  as  a  publisher  than  as  a  printer, 
for  it  is  not  certain  that  in  1555  he  owned  a 


1556  he  published  four  more  books,  two  of 
them  original;  in  1557  eight  books,  six  of 
them  original;  in  1558  fourteen  books,  many 
of  them  of  large  size  and  of  marked  merit. 
The  four  years  that  followed  show  steady  in- 
crease in  the  number  and  improvement  in 
the  quality  of  his  publications,  among  which 
were  several  Latin  classics,  a  Greek  text,  a 
Latin  Bible,  and  a  dictionary  in  four  lan- 
guages. 

His  ability  was  fully  recognized  in  1562, 
but  his  business  life  was  henceforward  a  suc- 
cession of  great  misfortunes  as  well  as  of  great 
achievements.  By  leaving  Paris  he  did  not 
escape,  he  only  postponed,  the  conflict  that 
had  begun  between  the  press,  the  state,  and 
the  church.  The  country  that  promised  to 


*  "  La  Institvtione  di  vna  Fancwlla  nala  nobil-  that  three  hundred  years  after  his  death  a  copy  of  this 
mente."  It  was  a  small  I2mo  (now  rated  an  i8mo).  It  book  would  be  sold  for  more  than  one  hundred  dollars, 
would  have  greatly  cheered  him  if  he  could  have  known  He  had  to  be  content  with  one  sou  and  a  quarter. 


228 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


give  him  liberty  was  to  become  the  chosen 
battle-field  of  the  contestants,  and  the  result 
of  the  battle  was  to  be  undecided  even  at 
his  death.  In  1562  the  regent,  Margaret 
of  Parma,  ordered  search  for  the  unknown 
printer  of  a  heretical  prayer-book,  and  it  was 
proved  that  the  book  had  been  printed  in 
Plantin's  printing-office.  Forewarned  of  com- 


JEAN    MORETUS     I,     SON-IN-LAW     OK     PLANTIN.  ,    (FROM    A    PAINTING    BY    RUBENS.) 

ing  danger,  Plantin  escaped  to  Paris,  where 
he  staid  for  twenty  months.  When  he  could 
safely  return,  his  business  had  been  destroyed, 
and  his  printing-office,  and  even  his  household 
property,  had  been  sold  at  auction  to  satisfy 
the  demands  of  his  creditors.  Thirteen  years 
of  labor  had  been  lost.  He  was  down,  but 
not  to  stay. 

Plantin  was  strongly  suspected  of  complic- 
ity in  this  matter  of  heretical  printing,  but  he 
had  not  been  condemned.  He  overcame  the 
prejudices,  if  there  had  been  any,  of  ecclesias- 
tical authorities,  and  made  them  active  friends 
forever,  although  he  was  frequently  afterward 
denounced  as  a  Calvinist.  Four  wealthy  men 


lent  him  money  to  found  a  printing-house,  in 
which  he  worked  hard.  At  the  end  of  the 
next  four  years  he  had  seven  presses  and 
forty  workmen  in  his  employ,  and  had  pub- 
lished 209  books.  What  to  him  was  of  more 
importance,  he  had  established  friendly  rela- 
tions with  the  authorities  of  the  state.  The 
city  of  Antwerp  gave  him  special  privileges 
as  printer;  the  King  of  Spain 
in  1570  made  him  "Proto- 
typographe,"  the  ruler  of 
all  the  printers  of  the  city. 
He  was  in  correspondence 
with  many  of  the  great 
scholars  and  artists  of  his 
time,  and  was  by  them,  as 
well  as  by  every  one,  re- 
garded as  the  foremost 
printer  of  the  world.  The 
King  of  France  invited  him 
to  Paris;  the  Duke  of  Savoy 
offered  to  give  to  him  a  great 
printing-house  and  special 
rewards  if  he  would  go  to 
Turin.  But  he  kept  in  Ant- 
werp, and  enlarged  his  busi- 
ness. He  not  only  worked 
himself,  but  made  all  his 
household  help  him.  His 
daughters  kept  a  book-store 
in  the  cloisters  of  the  ca- 
thedral ;  he  established  an 
agency  in  Paris  under  the 
direction  of  his  son-in-law, 
Gilles  Beys.  Another  son- 
in-law,  Moretus,  was  his 
chief  clerk,  and  a  regular 
attendant  at  all  the  Ger- 
man book  fairs,  while  an- 
other, Raphelengius,  was  his 
ablest  corrector  of  the  press. 
Even  the  younger  daughters 
were  required  to  learn  to 
read  writing,  and  to  serve  as 
copy-holders,  often  on  books 
in  foreign  languages,  before 
they  were  twelve  years  old. 

His  season  of  greatest  apparent  prosperity 
began  in  1570.  His  printing-house  was  soon 
after  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  literary  world. 
Twenty-two  presses  were  kept  at  work,  and 
two  hundred  crowns  in  gold  were  required 
every  day  for  the  payment  of  his  workmen,  re- 
cites an  old  chronicler  with  awe  and  astonish- 
ment. His  four  houses  were  too  small.  He 
had  to  buy  and  occupy  the  larger  property 
which  now  constitutes  the  Plantin- Moretus 
Museum.  Before  he  occupied  his  new  office 
he  had  printed  the  largest  and  most  expensive 
book  then  known  to  the  world,  the  "  Royal 
Polyglot,"  eight  volumes  folio,  in  four  Ian- 


A  PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


229 


BUST    OF     BALTHAZAR    MORETUS,     IN    THE    COURT-YARD. 

guages,  with  full-page  illustrations  from  copper- 
plates. It  was  an  enterprise  that  earned  him 
more  of  honor  than  of  profit,  for  the  King  of 
Spain,  who  had  promised  liberal  help,  dis- 
appointed him.  Plantin  had  incurred 
enormous  expenses  and  was  harassed 
by  creditors,  and  had  to  sell  or  pledge 
his  books  at  losing  prices.  At  that 
time  the  patronage  of  the  king  was 
a  hindrance,  for  when  he  was  in  the 
greatest  straits  the  king  commanded 
him  to  print  new  service  books  for  the 
Church  that  would  be  of  great  cost 
and  of  doubtful  profit. 

The  king's  habitual  neglect  to  pay 
his  obligations  provoked  his  soldiers 
to  outrages  which  nearly  ruined 
Plantin.  Antwerp  had  been  for  years 
in  practical  mutiny  against  the  king. 
To  repress  this  mutiny  the  citadel 
was  filled  with  Spanish  soldiers  who 
were  furious  because  they  had  not 
been  paid,  and  were  threatening  to 
plunder  the  city  by  way  of  reprisal 
or  as  compensation.  On  the  fourth 
day  of  November,  1576,  when  Plan- 
tin  was  no  more  than  fairly  settled 
in  his  new  office,  the  threat  was  ex- 
ecuted. Joined  by  an  army  beyond 
the  walls,  and  by  treacherous  allies 
that  the  civic  authorities  had  hired  as 
defenders,  they  began  the  sack  of 
the  city.  Eight  thousand  citizens 
were  killed,  a  thousand  houses  were 


burned,  six  million  florins'  worth  of  property 
were  burned,  and  as  much  more  was  stolen, 
amid  most  atrocious  cruelties.  The  prosperity 
of  the  great  city,  which  had  been  the  pride  of 
Europe,  received  a  blow  from  which  it  never  re- 
covered. The  business  of  Plantin  was  crushed. 
"  Nine  times,"  he  said,  "  did  I  have  to  pay 
ransom  to  save  my  property  from  destruction ; 
it  would  have  been  cheaper  to  have  abandoned 
it."  But  his  despondency  was  but  for  a  day. 
In  the  ruins  of  the  sacked  city,  surrounded  by 
savage  soldiers,  discouraged  with  a  faithless 
king  who  would  not  protect  his  property  nor 
pay  his  debts,  ill  at  ease  with  creditors  who 
feared  to  trust  him,  and  alarmed  at  the  absence 
of  buyers  who  dared  not  come  to  the  city,  Plan- 
tin  still  kept  at  work.  The  remainder  of  his 
life  was  practically  an  unceasing  struggle  with 
debt,  but  debt  did  not  make  him  abandon  his 
great  plans.  To  pay  his  debts  he  often  had  to 
sell  his  books  at  too  small  prices.  Sometimes 
he  had  to  sell  his  working- tools.  In  1581  he 
went  to  Paris  to  dispose  of  his  library,  costing 
16,000  francs,  for  less  thari  half  its  value. 

Rich  enough  in  books,  in  tools,  in  promises  to 
pay,  he  had  little  of  money,  and  slender  cred- 
it. The  political  outlook  was  disheartening. 
Alexander  of  Parma  was  menacing  Flanders 
and  Brabant ;  there  was  reason  to  fear  a  siege 
of  Antwerp  and  the  destruction  of  his  printing- 
house.  With  the  consent  of  his  creditors 


230 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


BALTHAZAR    MORETUS    I.        (AFTER    A    PAINTING    IN     BLACK    AND    WHITE    BY    ERASMUS    QUELLYN.) 


Plantin  temporarily  transferred  his  office  to 
his  sons-in-law,  and  in  1582  went  to  Ley  den, 
to  muse  as  he  went  on  the  warning,  "Put 
not  your  trust  in  princes."  There  he  was  cor- 
dially received  by  the  university,  and  at  once 
appointed  their  printer.  There  he  founded  a 
new  printing-house,  in  which  he  remained  for 
nearly  three  years.  When  the  siege  was  over, 
Plantin  returned  to  Antwerp,  but  it  was  never 
after  the  Antwerp  of  his  earlier  days.  Nor  was 
Plantin  himself  as  active.  The  king  had  made 
Antwerp  a  Catholic  city,  but  its  commerce  was 
destroyed. 

Plantin  died  on  the  first  day  of  July,  1589, 
and  was  buried  in  the  cathedral.  Although, 
by  reason  of  his  bold  undertakings,  he  had 
been  financially  embarrassed  for  many  years 
before  his  death,  he  left  a  good  estate,  at  least 


on  paper.  By  a  will  made  conjointly  with  his 
wife,  who  soon  followed  him,  he  gave  the 
management  of  his  printing-office  and  most 
of  his  property,  then  valued  at  135, 718  florins 
(equal  to  $217,000),  to  his  son-in-law  Moretus 
and  his  wife,  burdened  with  legacies  to  chil- 
dren and  other  heirs,  with  the  injunction  that 
they,  at  their  death,  should  bequeath  the  undi- 
vided printing-office  to  the  son  or  successor  who 
could  most  wisely  manage  it.  If  they  had  no 
competent  son,  then  they  must  select  a  compe- 
tent successor  out  of  the  family.  This  injunc- 
tion was  fairly  obeyed.  Under  John  Moretus 
the  reputation  of  the  house  was  fully  main- 
tained, although  the  publications  were  not  so 
many  nor  so  meritorious.  But  this  falling-off 
was  largely  due  to  the  diminished  importance 
of  Antwerp  as  acommercial  city.  His  sons  Bal- 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


231 


thazar  and  John  Moretus  II.  carried 
the  office  to  the  highest  degree  of 
prosperity.  To  Balthazar  I.,  more 
than  to  any  other  member  of  the 
family,  the  world  is  indebted  for  the 
treasures  of  art  and  learning  which 
now  grace  the  rooms  of  the  Plantin- 
Moretus  Museum.  A  very  large 
share  of  the  prosperity  of  the  house 
came  from  the  valuable  patents  and 
privileges  accorded  to  Plantin  and  his 
successors  by  the  King  of  Spain.  For 
more  than  two  hundred  years  they 
were  the  exclusive  makers  of  the  litur- 
gical books  used  in  Spain  and  its  de- 
pendencies. The  decline  of  the  house 
began  with  the  death  of  Balthazar  III. 
in  1696.  During  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury it  lost  its  preeminence  as  the  first 
printing-house  in  the  world,  and  was 
simply  a  manufactory  of  religious 
books.  In  1808  the  special  privileges 
they  had  for  making  these  books  for 
Spain  and  its  possessions  were  with- 
drawn, and  this  great  business  of  the 
house  was  at  an  end.  In  1867  it 
ceased  to  do  any  business. 

In  his  "  Archeologie  Typograph- 
ique,"  Bernard  told  of  the  desolation 
of  the  house  as  he  saw  it  in  1850. 
Everything  was  in  decay.  That  the 
types  and  matrices  would  soon  go  to 
the  melting-kettle;  that  books  and 
prints,  furniture  and  pictures,  would 
find  their  way,  bit  by  bit,  to  bric-a- 
brac  shops ;  that  this  old  glory  of 
Antwerp  would  soon  be  a  story  of 
the  past  —  seemed  inevitable.  Fortu- 
nately there  were  in  Antwerp  men  who 
tried  to  save  the  collection.  Messrs. 
Emanuel  Rosseels  and  Max  Rooses 
(now  conservateur  of  the  Museum), 
under  the  zealous  direction  of  M. 
Leopold  de  Wael,  the  burgomaster  of 
the  city,  induced  the  city  and  the  state 
to  buy  the  property,  the  transfer  of 
which  was  formally  made,  as  we  read 
from  a  tablet  in  the  wall,  in  1875. 

The  Museum,  as  it  now  stands,  is 
not  as  Plantin  left  it.  His  successors, 
Balthazar  I.  especially,  made  many 
changes,  additions,  and  restorations, 
but  all  have  been  done  with  propriety. 
The  visitor  is  not  shocked  by  incon- 
gruities of  structure  or  decoration. 
The  difficult  task  of  re-arranging  the 
house  has  been  done  with  excellent 
taste  by  the  architect  Pierre  Dens. 
It  is  the  great  charm  of  the  Museum 
that  the  house  and  its  contents,  the 
books,  pictures,  prints,  windows,  walls, 


JEANNE   RIVIERE,    HER    SIX    DAUGHTERS, 
A    PAINTING   IN   THE   CATHEDRA 


ANL>  JOHI> 
L   BY   VAN 


DEN    BROECK. ) 


232 


A    PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 

-    \\       \ 


ROOM    OF    JUSTUS    L1PSIUS. 


types,  presses,  furniture,  are  all  in  their  places, 
and  with  proper  surroundings.  They  fit.  To 
pass  the  doorway  is  to  take  leave  of  the  nine- 
teenth century ;  to  put  ourselves  not  only  with- 
in the  walls,  but  to  surround  ourselves  with  the 
same  familiar  objects  which  artists  and  men  of 
letters  saw  and  handled  two  or  three  centuries 
ago.  Here  are  their  chairs  and  tables,  their 
books  and  candlesticks,  and  other  accessories 
of  every-day  office  and  domestic  life.  It  is  a 
new  atmosphere.  Standing  in  the  vestibule 
under  a  copper  lamp,  facing  a  statue  of  Apollo, 
surrounded  by  sculptured  emblems  of  art  and 
science,  the  visitor  at  once  perceives  that  he 
is  in  something  more  than  a  printing-house — 
in  an  old  school  of  literature. 

Yet  there  is  little  that  is  bookish  in  the  first 
salon.  One's  attention  is  first  caught  by  the 
little  octagonal  window  lights  that  face  the 
inner  court,  bright  in  colors,  and  with  com- 
memorations of  John  Moretus  II.  and  Baltha- 
zar Moretus  II.  and  their  wives.  And  then 
one  has  to  note  the  heavy  beams  overhead, 
and  the  old  tapestries  on  the  walls,  the  great 


tortoise-shell  table,  and  the  buffet  of  oak  with 
its  queer  pottery,  and  the  still  queerer  painting 
of  an  old  street  parade  in  Antwerp. 

Over  the  chimney-piece  in  the  second  salon 
is  the  portrait  of  Christopher  Plantin  as  he 
appeared  at  sixty-four  years  of  age,  wrapped 
in  a  loose  black  robe,  with  a  broad  ruff  about 
his  neck — unmistakably  a  man  of  authority, 
and  of  severity  too.  There  is  nothing  dull, 
or  impassive,  or  Dutch,  about  this  head.  He 
is  a  Frenchman  of  the  old  school, — muscular, 
courageous,  enduring, — a  man  of  the  type  of 
Conde  or  Coligny.  Here  too  is  Jeanne  Ri- 
viere, his  wife.  How  Flemish-looking  is  this 
French  woman  of  placid  face,  in  her  white 
cap  and  quilled  collar!  plainly  one  of  the 
grand  old  women  that  Rembrandt  loved  to 
honor.  The  portraits  of  some  of  Plantin 's 
five  daughters  are  on  the  walls,  but  they  can 
be  seen  together  only  at  the  cathedral,  on  a 
panel  painted  by  Van  den  Broeck.  The  eldest, 
Marguerite,  was  married  in  1565,  to  Francis 
Raphelengius.*  Martine,  the  second  daugh- 
ter, in  1570  married  John  Moretus,  who  was 


*  The  wedding  festivities  lasted  one  week,  for  which  sous,  five  legs  of  mutton  at   I   florin,  twelve  sweet  - 

Plantinmade  this  provision,  which  has  a  fine  medieval  breads  at  7^  sous  the  dozen,  three  beef  tongues  at  8 

flavor:  three  sucking  pigs  at  1 7  sous  each,  six  capons  at  sous,  four  almond  cakes,  six  calves'  heads,  three  legs 

22  sous,  twelve  pigeons  at  6  sous,  twelve  quails  at  4  of  mutton  browned,  six  (i6-lb. )  hams  at  2^  sous  the 


A    PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


Plantin's  trusted  man  of  business  during 
his  life,  and  his  heir  and  successor.  Made- 
laine,  the  fourth  daughter,  brightest  of  all,  in 
1572  married  Egidius  Beys,  who  was  Plantin's 
agent  in  Paris.  "  My  first  son-in-law,"  wrote 
Plantin,  "  cares  for  nothing  but  books ;  my 


233 

in-law  who  complemented  each  other  and 
fully  served  him.  Beys  *  was  not  an  esteemed 
assistant,  nor  was  his  son. 

Here  too  are  the  portraits  of  many  of  the 
learned  friends  of  Plantin.  The  somber  face 
of  Arias  Montanus,  the  learned  confessor  of 


THE    CONFERENCE    CHAMBER. 


second  knows  nothing  but  business."  Not  a 
kindly  criticism  of  Moretus,  who  was  learned 
and  wrote  well  in  four  languages,  but  Plantin 
must  have  been  well  content  with  these  sons- 
pound,  Rhine  wine  valued  at  12  florins  5  sous,  red 
wine  valued  at  4  florins  2^  sous,  red  and  black 
cherries,  strawberries,  oranges,  capers,  olives,  apples, 
salads,  and  radishes  valued  at  3  florins  8j£  sous, 
confectionery  valued  at  4  florins  9  sous,  two  pounds  of 
sugar-plums,  one  pound  of  anis,  and  three  pounds  of 
Milan  cheese.  The  gifts  to  Raphelengius  amounted 
to  32  florins  5  sous  ;  to  Plantin  (for  this  was  the  cus- 
tom of  the  period),  90  florins  16^  sous.  Plantin  gave 
to  his  workmen  on  this  occasion  a  pot  of  wine  valued 
at  7  florins. 

*In  1587  the  eldest  son  of  Beys,  then  fourteen 
years  of  age,  lived  with  his  grandfather.  At  the  close 
of  a  day  of  alleged  misconduct,  Plantin  required  of 
him  the  task  to  compose  and  write  in  Latin  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  manner  in  which  he  had  spent  that  day. 
This  is  the  translation:  "The  occupations  of  Chris- 
tophe  Beys,  February  21,  1587.  I  got  up  at  half-past 
6  o'clock.  I  went  to  embrace  my  grandfather  and 
grandmother.  Then  I  took  breakfast.  Before  7 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 33. 


Philip  II.,  who  was  commissioned  by  the  king 
to  superintend  the  printing  of  the  great  poly- 
glot, glows  with  all  the  color  that  Rubens 
could  give.  By  the  same  painter  are  the  por- 

o'clock  I  went  to  my  class,  and  well  recited  my  lesson 
in  syntax.  At  8  o'clock  I  heard  mass.  At  half-past  8 
I  had  learned  my  lesson  in  Cicero  and  I  fairly  re- 
cited it.  At  II  o'clock  I  returned  to  the  house  and 
studied  my  lesson  in  phraseology.  After  dinner  I 
went  back  to  the  class  and  properly  recited  my  les- 
son. At  half-past  2  I  had  fairly  recited  my  lesson  in 
Cicero.  At  4  o'clock  I  went  to  hear  a  sermon.  Be- 
fore 6  o'clock  I  returned  to  the  house,  and  I  read 
a  proof  [held  copy  for]  Libelhis  Sodalitatis  with  my 
cousin  Francis  [Raphelengius].  I  showed  myself  re- 
fractory while  reading  the  proofs  of  the  book.  Before 
supper,  my  grandfather  having  made  me  go  to  him, 
to  repeat  what  I  had  heard  preached,  I  did  not  wish  to 
go  nor  to  repeat ;  and  even  when  others  desired  me  to 
ask  pardon  of  grandfather,  I  was  unwilling  to  answer. 
Finally,  I  have  showed  myself  in  the  eyes  of  all,  proud, 
stubborn,  and  willful.  After  supper  I  have  written  my 
occupations  for  this  day,  and  I  have  read  them  to  my 
grandfather.  The  end  crowns  the  work." 


234 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


traits  of  Ortelius  and  Justus  Lipsius  and  Pan- 
tinus — grave,  scholarly,  dignified  faces  all. 
Of  greater  attraction  is  the  portrait,  so  often 
copied,  of  Gevartius,  the  clerk  of  the  city  of 
Antwerp.  A  showcase  in  the  middle  of  the 
room  contains  designs  by  Martin  de  Vos,  Van 
den  Broeck,  Van  der  Borcht,  Van  Noort,  Van 
der  Horst,  Rubens,  Quellyn,  and  other  illustra- 
tors of  books  for  the  Plantin  office,  all  famous 


ception  must  have  been  exercised  to  find 
heresy  in  the  Psalms !  This  was  not  the  only 
interference  with  the  printer  by  the  law,  for 
there  is  also  posted  a  tariff  made  by  the  magis- 
trates of  Antwerp,  by  which  a  fixed  price  is 
made  for  every  popular  book.  Whoever  dares 
sell  a  book  at  a  higher  price  is  warned  that 
he  shall  be  fined  twenty-five  florins.  In  the 
corner  near  the  window  is  the  chair  in  which 


PLANTIN  S    PROOF-READERS    AT    WORK. 
(FROM     A    PAINTING     BY  PIERRE  VAN    DER    OUDERA,     NOW    IN     POSSESSION     OF    FELIX    GRISAR,     ANTWERP.) 


in  their  time.  Not  the  least  curious  is  Rubens' 
bill  of  sale,  dated  1630,  to  Balthazar  Moretus 
I.,  of  328  copies  of  the  works  of  Hubert  Golt- 
zius,  the  great  archaeologist,  for  4920  florins, 
and  the  further  sum  of  1000  florins  for  the 
plates  of  the  same,  payable  in  books.  The 
opportunity  for  "  working  off  unsold  remain- 
ders "  was  not  neglected. 

Fronting  on  a  side  street  is  the  old  book- 
store, with  all  its  furniture,  including  the  old 
scales  by  which  light  gold  coin  was  tested. 
A  motley  collection  of  books  is  on  the  shelves 
— prayer-books  and  classic  texts,  amatory 
poems  and  polemical  theology.  Posted  up  is 
a  "  Catalogue  of  Prohibited  Books,"  a  pla- 
card printed  by  Plantin  himself  in  1569,  by 
the  order  of  the  Duke  of  Alva.  Two  of  the 
prohibited  books,  the  "  Colloquies  of  Eras- 
mus "  and  the  "  Psalms  of  Clement  Marot," 
came  from  the  Plantin  press.  What  keen  per- 


the  shop-boy  sat  and  announced  incoming  cus- 
tomers to  the  daughters  who  were  at  work  in 
the  rear  of  the  store,  from  which  it  was  sepa- 
rated by  a  glazed  partition.  Plainly  a  room 
for  work  and  trade,  but  how  differently  work 
and  trade  were  done  then !  No  doubt  there 
was  enough  of  drudgery,  but  to  the  young 
women  who  worked  in  the  glow  of  the  col- 
ored glass  windows,  and  listened  to  the  tick- 
ing of  the  tall  Flemish  clock,  and  saw  above 
them  on  the  wall  the  beautiful  face  of  a  stat- 
uette of  the  Madonna,  life  could  not  have 
had  the  grimy,  stony  face  it  presents  to  the 
modern  shop-girl. 

In  an  adjoining  room  is  the  salon  of  tap- 
estries, five  of  which  represent  shepherds, 
hunters,  market  women,  dancers, —  Flemish 
idyls  all.  One  has  to  make  another  compari- 
son, between  the  value  of  old  and  modern 
needle-work,  not  to  the  credit  of  Berlin  wools 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


235 


THE    PRESS-ROOM. 


and  South  Kensington  stitches.  Curious  fur- 
niture is  in  the  room — a  buffet  on  which  rests 
fine  old  china,  wardrobes  in  oak  and  ebony, 
chairs  and  tables  of  wonderful  carving,  all 
surmounted  by  a  chandelier  of  crystal.  Most 
interesting  of  all  is  an  old  harpsichord  with 
three  tiers  of  keys,  on  the  interior  of  which  is 
painted  a  copy  of  Rubens'  St.  Cecilia.  It 
bears  the  inscription,  "Johannes  Josephus 
Coenen,  priest  and  organist  of  the  cathedral, 
made  me,  Roermond,  1735."  Not  at  all  an 
old  piece, — just  midway  between  Plantin's 
time  and  ours, — but  how  old  it  seems  by  the 
side  of  a  modem  piano ! 

Of  severer  simplicity  is  the  room  of  the 
Correctors  of  the  Press,  in  which  is  a  great 
oak  table  that  overlaps  the  two  diamond- 
paned  windows  opening  on  the  inner  court. 
On  the  walls  are  paintings  of  two  of  the  most 
famous  of  Plantin's  correctors  —  Theodore 
Poelman  and  Cornelius  Kilianus.  Poelman  is 
represented  as  a  scholar  at  work  on  his  books 
in  a  small,  mean  room,  in  which  his  wife  is 
spinning  thread  and  a  fuller  is  at  work.  And 
this  was  Poelman's  lot  in  life :  to  work  as  a 
fuller  by  day,  and  to  correct  and  prepare  for 
press  classic  texts  at  night,  for  three  or  four 
florins  per  volume.  Kilianus  was  corrector  for 
the  Plantin  house  for  fifty  years.  Beginning 


as  a  compositor  in  1558,  at  the  very  modest 
salary  of  five  patards  a  day,  not  more  (per- 
haps less)  than  two  dollars  and  forty  cents  a 
week  in  our  currency,  he  ultimately  became 
Plantin's  most  trusted  general  proof-reader. 
Not  so  learned  as  Raphelengius,  he  was  more 
efficient  in  supervising  the  regular  work  of  the 
house.  He  wrote  good  Latin  verse,  composed 
prefaces  and  made  translations  for  many  books, 
and  compiled  a  Flemish  dictionary  of  which 
Plantin  seems  to  have  been  ungenerously 
envious.  His  greatest  salary  was  but  four 
florins  a  week,  but  little  more  than  was  then 
paid  to  Plantin's  expert  compositors.  The 
most  learned  of  Plantin's  regular  correctors 
was  his  son-in-law  Raphelengius,  who  had 
been  a  teacher  of  Greek  at  Cambridge.  He 
began  his  work  in  the  Plantin  office  at  forty 
florins  a  year  and  his  board.  Montanus  testified 
that  he  had  thorough  knowledge  of  many 
languages,  and  was  an  invaluable  assistant  on 
the  Polyglot  Bible.  His  greatest  salary,  in 
1581,  was  but  four  hundred  florins  a  year. 
As  a  rule  editing  and  proof-reading  were 
done  at  the  minimum  of  cost.  The  wages 
paid  to  a  scholarly  reader,  who  had  entire 
knowledge  of  three  or  four  languages,  was 
about  twelve  florins  a  month.  Ghisbrecht, 
one  of  these  correctors,  agreed  to  prepare 


236 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


copy  for  and  to  oversee  the  work  of  six  com- 
positors for  his  board  and  sixty  florins  a  year. 
Besides  the  regular  correctors  of  the  house, 
Plantin  had  occasionally  some  volunteer  or 
unpaid  correctors,  like  Montanus.  His  friend 
Justus  Lipsius  seems  to  have  been  the  only 
editor  who  was  fairly  paid  for  literary  work. 

The  printing-room  does  not  give  a  just  idea 
of  its  old  importance.  What  here  remains  is 
as  it  was  in  1576,  but  the  space  then  occu- 
pied for  printing  must  have  been  very  much 


workmanship  which  has  been  the  admiration 
of  the  world. 

Plantin  had  this  work  done  at  small  cost. 
His  account-books  show  that  the  average 
yearly  earnings  of  expert  compositors  were 
one  hundred  and  forty-two  florins,  and  of  the 
pressmen  one  hundred  and  five  florins.  The 
eight-hour  law  was  unknown.  Work  began 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  but  no  time  is 
stated  for  its  ending.  His  rules  were  hard. 
One  of  them  was  that  the  compositor  who 


THE     PROOF-READERS      ROOM. 


larger.  Plantin's  inventory,  taken  after  his 
death,  showed  that  he  had  in  Antwerp  seventy- 
three  fonts  of  type,  weighing  38,1.21  pounds. 
Now  seven  hand-presses  and  their  tables  oc- 
cupy two  sides  of  the  room,  and  rows  of  type- 
cases  and  stands  fill  the  remnant  of  space. 
How  petty  these  presses  seem !  How  small 
the  impression  surface,  how  rude  all  the  ap- 
pliances !  Yet  from  these  presses  came  the 
great  "  Royal  Polyglot,"  the  Roman  Missal, 
still  bright  with  solid  black  and  glowing  red 
inks,  and  thousands  of  volumes,  written  by 
great  scholars,  many  of  them  enriched  with 
designs  by  old  Flemish  masters.  "  The  man 
is  greater  than  the  machine,"  and  Plantin  was 
master  over  his  presses.  From  these  uncouth 
unions  of  wood  and  stone,  pinned  together 
with  bits  of  iron,  he  made  his  pressmen  extort 


set  three  words  or  six  letters  not  in  the  copy 
should  be  fined.  Another  was  the  prohibition 
of  all  discussions  on  religion.  Every  workman 
must  pay  for  his  entrance  a  bienvenue  of  eight 
sous  as  drink  money,  and  give  two  sous  to 
the  poor-box.  At  the  end  of  the  month  he 
must  give  thirty  sous  to  the  poor-box  and 
ten  sous  to  his  comrades.  This  bienvenue  was 
as  much  an  English  as  a  Flemish  custom,  as 
one  may  see  in  Franklin's  autobiography. 

The  presses  cost  about  fifty  florins  each.  In 
one  of  his  account-books  is  the  record  that 
he  paid  forty-five  florins  for  copper  platens  to 
six  of  his  presses.  This  is  an  unexpected  dis- 
covery. It  shows  that  Plantin  knew  the  value 
of  a  hard  impression  surface,  and  made  use 
of  it  three  centuries  before  the  printer  of  THE 
CENTURY  tried,  as  he  thought  for  the  first 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


237 


time,  the  experiment  of  iron 
and  brass  impression  surfaces 
for  inelastic  impression. 

The  proportion  of  readers  or 
correctors  to  compositors  was 
large.  In  1575  Plantin  had,  be- 
sides Raphelengius  and  More- 
tus,  five  correctors  for  twenty- 
four  compositors,  thirty-nine 
pressmen,  and  four  apprentices. 
Much  of  the  work  done  by  these 
correctors  was  really  editing, 
translating,  re-writing,  and  pre- 
paring copy.  With  all  these 
correctors,  proof-reading  prop- 
er was  not  too  well  done. 
Ruelens  notes  in  Plantin's  best 
work,  the  "  Royal  Polyglot," 
one  hundred  and  fifteen  errors 
of  paging  in  the  eight  folio 
volumes.  Yet  this  book  was 
supervised  by  Montanus  and 
Raphelengius,  and  in  some  por- 
tions by  eminent  scholars  and 
professors  of  the  Leyden  Uni- 
versity. 

To  publish  a  polyglot  with 
parallel  texts  in  Latin,  Greek, 
Hebrew,  and  Chaldee,  with 
Granvelle  and  ecclesiastics  of 
high  station  to  recommend  the 
proposed  work  to  the  king 
and  to  get  from  him  a  subvention,  Plan- 
tin's  first  estimate  for  the  six  volumes  which 
he  then  thought  enough  for  the  work  was 
24,000  florins,  exclusive  of  the  cost  of  new 
types  and  binding.  After  much  deliberation 
the  king  consented  to  advance  6000  ducats, 
for  which  he  was  to  receive  an  equal  value 
in  books  at  trade  rates.  But  the  work  grew 
on  Plantin's  hands ;  it  made  eight  volumes 
instead  of  six,  and  it  cost  100,000  crowns  be- 
fore it  was  completed.  Twelve  hundred  copies 
on  paper  were  printed  and  announced  to  the 
trade  in  the  style  of  the  modern  Parisian 
publisher. 

10  on  grand  imperial  paper  of  Italy,  .price  not  stated 

30  on  grand  imperial,  at  the  price  of 200  florins 

200  on  the  fine  royal  paper  of  Lyons 100  florins 

960  on  the  fine  royal  paper  of  Troyes 70  florins 

The  king  had  twelve  copies  on  vellum, 
which  required  more  skins  than  could  be  had 
in  Antwerp  or  Holland.  It  is  of  interest  to 
note  that  Plantin,  like  all  printers,  had  no 
enthusiasm  for  vellum.  To  an  application 
from  a  German  prince  who  asked  for  a  copy 
on  vellum,  Plantin  answered  that  none  could 
be  furnished,  but  that  the  copies  on  the  impe- 
rial Italian  paper  were  really  better  printed 
than  those  on  the  vellum.  In  the  matter  of 


\ 


THE    ENTRANCE    TO    THE    ENGRAVING-KOOM  —  IN     BLACK    AND    GOLD. 


clean,  clear  printing   they  were   every  way 
better. 

This  "  Royal  Polyglot "  was  the  beginning 
of  Plantin's  financial  troubles,  from  which  he 
never  fairly  recovered.  The  king  would  not 
allow  the  work  to  be  published  until  it  had 
been  approved  by  the  pope,  who  refused  his 
consent.  Montanus  went  to  Rome  to  plead 
for  a  change  of  decision ;  but  it  was  not  until 
1573,  when  a  new  pope  was  in  the  chair,  that 
this  permit  was  granted.  Even  then  the  diffi- 
culties were  not  over.  A  Spanish  theologian 
denounced  the  work  as  heretical,  Judaistic,  the 
product  of  the  enemies  of  the  Church.  Then 
the  Inquisition  made  a  slow  examination,  and 
grudgingly  decided  in  1580  that  it  might  be 
lawfully  sold.  For  more  than  seven  years  the 
unhappy  book  was  under  a  cloud  of  doubt  as 
to  its  orthodoxy.  The  damage  to  Plantin  was 
severe.  Before  he  reached  the  concluding  vol- 
umes his  means  were  exhausted,  and  he  had 
to  mortgage  at  insufficient  prices  two-thirds 
of  the  copies  done.  The  king  was  fully  repaid 
in  books  for  all  money  he  had  advanced,  but 
Plantin  got  no  more.  With  the  generosity 
of  people  who  are  accustomed  to  give  what 
does  not  belong  to  them,  the  king  granted 
Plantin  an  annual  pension  of  four  hundred 
florins,  secured  on  a  confiscated  Dutch  estate ; 


238 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


but  the  perverse  Dutchman  who  owned  the 
estate  soon  retook  it,  and  as  the  king  could 
not  wrest  it  from  him,  the  pension  was  forever 
ineffective. 

Seven  rooms  or  lobbies  in  the  Museum  are 
devoted  to  the  exhibition  of  engravings  as  well 
as  of  their  blocks  or  plates,  of  which  there  are 
more  than  2000  on  copper  and  about  15,000 
on  wood.  It  is  a  most  curious  collection  of 
original  work,  more  complete  and  more  diver- 
sified than  that  of  any  printing-house  before 


was  in  his  trade,  and  who  loved  his  work  for 
the  work's  sake.  His  early  training  as  a  book- 
finisher  gave  him  decorative  inclinations. 
What  he  could  not  do  on  book  covers  with 
gilding-tools  he  tried  to  have  done  on  the 
printed  leaves  with  wood-cuts  from  designs  by 
eminent  artists. 

He  must  have  quickly  earned  good  reputa- 
tion as  a  skillful  printer  of  wood-cuts,  for  he 
was  chosen  by  the  authorities  of  Antwerp  over 
all  rivals  to  print  a  large  illustrated  book  de- 


THE    TYPE-FOUNDRY. 


the  nineteenth  century.  Indeed,  it  would  not 
be  easy  to  find  a  rival  as  to  quantity  and 
quality  among  modern  houses.  Here  are  etch- 
ings by  Rubens,  Van  Dyck,  Jordaens,  Teniers ; 
engravings  by  Bolswert,  Vorsterman,  Pontius, 
Edelinck.  One  looks  with  more  than  ordinary 
attention  on  the  St.  Catharine,  the  only  etch- 
ing known  to  have  been  done  by  the  hand  of 
Rubens,  as  well  as  on  the  wonderful  line  en- 
graving by  Edelinck  of  the  portrait  of  Phil- 
ippe de  Champagne.  The  prints  that  may 
be  most  admired  were  made  to  the  order 
of  Plantin's  successors,  who  were  contempo- 
raries of  the  greatest  Flemish  masters,  but 
their  preference  for  the  work  of  true  artists 
was  implanted  by  the  founder  of  the  house.  "  I 
never  neglected,"  Plantin  said,  "  when  I  had 
the  opportunity  and  the  ability,  to  pay  for  the 
work  of  the  best  engravers."  The  sparsity  of 
engravings  in  his  earlier  books  was,  no  doubt, 
caused  by  his  poverty ;  but  even  these  petty 
books  show  that  they  were  planned  by  a  man 
of  superior  taste  —  by  a  printer  whose  heart 


scribing  the  recent  obsequies  of  Charles  V. 
This  book  he  published  in  1559  in  the  form 
of  an  oblong  folio,  containing  thirty-three  large 
plates,  at  the  cost  of  2000  florins.  These  plates, 
although  separately  printed,  were  designed  to 
be  conjoined,  and  used  as  a  processional  frieze, 
In  planning  this  book  he  did  not  repeat  the 
folly  of  many  of  his  rivals,  who  were  still  imi- 
tating the  coarse  designs  and  rude  cutting  of 
the  obsolete  "  Biblia  Pauperum  "  and  "  Specu- 
lum Salutis."  He  gave  the  work  to  a  compe- 
tent designer,  and  was  equally  careful  with  the 
engraving  and  printing,  and  found  his  profit 
in  the  large  sale  of  many  editions  and  in 
five  languages.  After  this  he  made  increasing 
use  of  engravings  on  wood.  No  printer  of  his 
time  illustrated  books  so  freely  :  in  one  book, 
the  "  Botany"  of  Dodonaeus,  the  cuts  would  be 
regarded  now  as  profusely  extravagant.  To 
this  day  they  are  models  of  good  line  draw- 
ing and  clean  engraving.  When  the  text  did 
not  call  for  descriptive  illustrations  he  made 
free  use  of  large  initial  letters,  head-bands,  and 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


239 


tail-pieces.  The  shelves  and  closets  of,  the 
Museum  contain  thousands  of  initials  remark- 
able for  the  vigor  of  their  designs  or  the  inge- 
nuity of  their  backgrounds  or  interfacings.  One 
series  is  about  five  inches  square.  One  cannot 
refrain  from  expressing  the  regret  that  so  many 
modern  designers  and  publishers  seem  to  be 
entirely  ignorant  of  the  beauty  of  some  of  the 
Plantin  initials,  and  prefer  elaborated  distor- 
tions of  the  alphabet,  which  are  every  way  un- 
worthy of  comparison.  But  Plantin  soon  found 
that  there  was  a  limit  to  the  effects  to  be  had 
from  engravings  on  wood  when  printed  on  his 
rough  paper  and  by  his  weak  presses.  He  be- 
gan to  develop  on  a  grand  scale  illustrations  on 
copper,  of  which  the  "  Humanae  Salutis  Monu- 
menta"  of  1571,  with  its  seventy-one  large 
plates,  was  his  earliest  and  most  noteworthy 
example. 

Two  rooms  contain  the  remnants  of  the 
type-foundry,  which  provoke  reflection  on  the 
difference  between  old  and  new  methods  of 
book-making.  The  modern  printer  does  not 
make  his  types ;  he  does  not  even  own  a  punch 
or  a  matrix.  Buying  his  types  from  many  foun- 
dries, he  has  great  liberty  of  selection, but,  neces- 
sarily, a  selection  from  the  designs  of  other  men. 
It  follows  that  the  text  types  of  one  printer  may 
be  —  must  be,  often — just  the  same  as  those 
of  another  printer,  and  that  there  can  be  no 
really  strong  individuality  in  the  books  of  any 
house.  In  the  sixteenth  century  every  eminent 
printer  had  some  of  his  types  made  to  his  own 
order,  which  types  he  only  used.  This  was 
the  method :  He  hired  an  engraver  to  draw 
and  cut  in  steel  the  model  letters,  or  punches, 
and  to  provide  the  accompanying  mold  and 
matrices.  Keeping  the  punches,  he  took  the 
mold  and  matrices  to  men  who  cast  types  for 
the  trade,  who  furnished  him  all  he  needed. 
The  founders  who  made  Plantin's  earlier  types 
were  Guyot  and  Van  Everbrocht  of  Antwerp. 
The  designs  for  these  types  and  the  making 
of  the  punches  and  matrices  were  by  skilled 
engravers  in  different  cities  at  prices  which  now 
seem  incredibly  small  —  from  twenty  to  forty 
sous  for  punch  and  matrix  of  ordinary  letter. 
Robert  Granjon  of  Lyons  and  Guillaume  Le 
Be  of  Paris  did  much  of  his  best  work ;  Hau- 
tin  of  Rochelle,  Ven  der  Keere  of  Tours,  and 
Bomberghe  of  Cologne  were  also  employed. 
Plantin  had  types  cast  in  his  office  after  1563, 
but  the  foundry  was  not  an  important  part  of 
the  house  until  1600:  at  that  date  the  collec- 
tion of  punches  was  very  large. 

Here  are  some  of  the  common  tools  of 
type-making, —  the  vises,  grindstones,  files, 
gravers,  etc., —  and  rude  enough  they  seem. 
When  we  go  into  the  next  room,  and  scrutinize 
the  molds  and  punches  behind  the  wire  screens, 
and  the  justified  matrices  in  the  showcases, 


we  wonder  that  this  excellent  workmanship 
could  have  been  done  by  these  rough  tools. 
Printed  specimens  of  some  of  the  types  are 
shown  on  the  walls,  but  they  do  not  fairly 
show  the  full  merit  of  the  work.  It  is  true  that 
the  counters  are  not  as  deep  as  a  modern 
founder  would  require,  but  the  cutting  is  clean 
and  good.  Here  are  the  punches  of  the  great 
type  of  the  Polyglot,  of  the  music  of  the 
Antiphonary,  besides  Roman,  Italic,  Greek, 
and  Hebrew, —  of  many  sizes, —  all  out  of 
use,  out  of  style.  Do  we  make  better  types 
now  ?  From  the  mechanical  point  of  view, 
yes  :  modern  types  are  more  truly  cut  and 
aligned,  more  solid  in  body,  than  those  cast 
by  hand  from  metal  poured  in  the  mold  with 
a  spoon.  From  the  utilitarian,  and  even  from 
the  artistic  standpoint,  one  cannot  say  yes  so 
confidently.  Modern  types  are  more  delicate, 
have  more  finish,  and  more  graceful  lines ;  but 
the  old  types  are  stronger  and  simpler,  more 
easily  read,  and  have  features  of  grace  that 
have  never  been  excelled. 

To  the  admirer  of  old  furniture,  the  room 
numbered  26  —  the  bed-chamber  of  the  last 
Moretus  —  is  attractive.  A  great  bedstead  of 
carved  oak,  black  with  age,  partly  covered 
with  an  embroidered  silk  coverlet  (a  marvel 
of  neat  handiwork  and  dinginess),  flanked  by 
a  grimy  prie-dieu  and  a  wardrobe  equally 
venerable,  is  dimly  reflected  in  a  tarnished 
mirror  of  the  last  century.  On  walls  covered 
with  stamped  and  gilt  leather  hang  two  old 
prints  and  a  carving  of  the  crucifixion.  Ele- 
gant in  its  day,  admirable  yet,  but  how  dead 
and  cheerless  is  this  little  room !  As  devoid 
of  life  and  warmth  as  the  crucibles  and  fur- 
naces in  the  foundry. 

There  is  no  room  in  the  Museum  deficient 
in  objects  of  interest,  for  in  all  are  paintings 
or  prints  or  old  typographic  bric-a-brac  enough 
to  evoke  enthusiasm  from  the  dullest  observer; 
but,  after  all,  the  great  charm  of  a  printer's 
museum  is  in  the  printer's  books,  and  the  li- 
brary is  properly  placed  at  the  end  of  all,  and  is 
the  culmination  of  all.  It  is  rich  in  rare. books. 
Here  is  the  Bible  of  thirty-six  lines,  which  is 
rated  by  many  bibliographers  as  the  first  great 
work  of  Gutenberg.  Here  are  first  editions  and 
fine  copies  from  the  offices  of  all  the  famous 
early  printers.  They  were  not  bought  for  show, 
nor  as  rarities  —  merely  as  texts  to  be  com- 
pared, collated,  or  referred  to  for  a  new  manu- 
script copy  to  be  put  in  the  compositors'  hands. 
The  collection  here  shown  of  the  books  printed 
by  Plantin  is  large,  probably  larger  than  can 
be  found  elsewhere,  but  not  entirely  complete. 
They  are  not  arranged  in  chronological  or- 
der ;  one  has  to  consult  Ruelens's  catalogue  to 
see  how  Plantin's  ambition  rose  with  oppor- 
tunity —  to  see  what  great  advances  he  made 


240 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


every  year  and  for  many  years,  not  only  in 
the  number  of  his  books,  but  in  their  greater 
size  and  merit,  and  in  steadily  increasing  im- 
provement of  workmanship.  "  He  is  all  spirit," 
wrote  Montanus ;  "  he  gives  little  thought  to 
food,  or  drink,  or  repose.  He  lives  to  work." 


published  by  Max  Rooses,  the  director  of  the 
Museum. 

In  these  records  may  be  found  his  corre- 
spondence with  artists,  scholars,  and  dignita- 
ries, both  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  as  well  as 
the  weekly  bills  of  his  workmen,  inventories 
of  stock,  accounts  of  sales,  of  profit  and  loss, 
memoranda  of  work  done  and  work  prepared 
—  everything  one  can  need  for  an  insight  into 
the  economy  of  an  old  printing-house.  Here 
is  his  letter  to  the  King  of  Spain  setting  forth  his 
grievances  from  the  king's  delayed  payments ; 


1 


PLANTIN  S    PRIVATE    OFFICE. 


But  the  most  valuable  part  of  this  collection 
of  14,000  books  is  not  in  its  printed  but  its 
written  treasures.  Plantin  was  a  model  man 
of  business,  who  carefully  preserved  records, 
accounts,  and  much  of  his  correspondence, 
and  taught  his  successors  to  exercise  similar 
diligence.  The  records  show  more  than  the 
business ;  they  show  the  man  and  his  motives. 
Many  are  in  Plantin's  handwriting;  the  ac- 
counts in  Flemish,  the  correspondence  in 
Latin,  French,  and  sometimes  in  Spanish.  The 
more  valuable  papers  have  been  edited  and 


the  items  of  money  spent  at  the  wedding- 
feast  of  each  daughter  (and  curious  reading 
it  is) ;  the  bills  of  type-founders  and  engravers 
on  wood;  his  written  wrestlings  with  money- 
lenders who  wanted  too  much  of  interest  or 
of  security,  and  with  booksellers  who  wanted 
too  much  discount,  and  sold  books  below  reg- 
ular prices;  his  bargainings  with  editors  and 
authors  for  manuscripts,  and  the  pourboires 
he  had  to  pay  to  officials  of  high  and  low  sta- 
tion for  permission  to  print;  his  complaints 
against  the  intolerable  delays  of  artists  and 


A   PAINTER'S  PARADISE. 


241 


engravers.*  Rich  as  it  is  in  relics  of  the  do- 
mestic life  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  the  house  and  furniture  of  the  Mu- 
seum does  not  show  that  domestic  life  with 
the  clearness  that  the  business  life  can  be  seen 
in  the  records.  What  is  missing  ? 

It  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  make  a  wise  se- 
lection from  the  wealth  of  the  material  which 
M.  Rooses,  the  director  of  the  Museum,  has 
brought  to  light.  One  must  begin  with  the 
unexpected  discoveries.  Contrary  to  the  pre- 
vailing belief,  Plantin's  editions  were  not  small. 
His  ordinary  edition  was  1250  copies;  his 
largest  edition  was  3900  copies  of  the  Penta- 
teuch in  Hebrew.  He  refused  to  print  books 
in  small  editions  unless  he  was  paid  the  cost 
of  the  work  before  it  was  begun.  He 
sold  few  single  copies;  the  retail  trade 
in  ordinary  books  was  done  by  wife  and 
daughters  in  shops  in  other  quarters 
of  the  city.  Nearly  all  his  books  went 
to  booksellers  at  fairs  or  in  other  cities, 
to  whom  he  gave  small  discounts,  about 
one-sixth  less  than  the  retail  price.  The 
retail  prices  were  very  small.  The  ordinary 
text-book,  in  an  octavo  (in  size  of  leaf  equivalent 
to  the  modern  i6mo)  of  three  hundred  and 
twenty  pages,  was  then  sold  at  retail  for  ten 
sous.  A  Horace  of  eleven  sheets  sold  for  one 
sou  ;  a  Virgil  of  nineteen  and  a  half  sheets  for 
three  sous — of  thirty-eight  sheets  for  five  sous ; 
the  Bible,  1567,  in  Latin,  at  one  florin.  For 
large  quartos  and  folios,  for  texts  in  Greek,  and 
for  profusely  illustrated  books,  the  prices  were 
as  high  as,  or  even  higher  than,  they  are  now, 
considering  the  then  greater  purchasing  power 
of  money.  For  his  Polyglot  in  eight  volumes 
he  asked  seventy  florins,  equivalent  to  one 
hundred  and  twelve  dollars  of  American 
money. 

The  modern  publisher  is  amazed  at  the 
low  prices  for  ordinary  books,  but  the  records 
show  that  the  cost  of  a  book  was  in  proportion. 
Planlin  paid  very  little  to  authors  and  editors. 
Sometimes  they  were  required  to  contribute 
to  the  cost  of  the  printing,  and  were  given  a 
few  copies  of  the  book  after  it  had  been 
printed  as  a  full  make- weight.  As  a  rule  they 
contributed  nothing,  and  were  paid,  if  paid  at 
all,  in  their  own  books.  Many  authors  got  but 
ten  florins  for  the  copy  of  valuable  and  sal- 
able books.  The  literary  world  was  under- 
going a  curious  transition.  In  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries  scholars  had  tried  to 

*  There  are  engravers  on  copper  here  who  offer  to 
work  for  eight  florins  a  day  in  their  own  houses. 
When  they  have  worked  one  or  two  days  they  go  to 
taverns  and  disreputable  houses,  and  carouse  witli 
worthless  people.  There  they  pawn  their  goods  and 
tools.  Whoever  has  work  in  their  hands  is  obliged  to 
hunt  them  up  and  pay  their  debts.  [Plantin  to  Ferdi- 
nand Ximenes,  Jan.  2,  1587.] 
VOL.  XXXVI.— 34. 


keep  to  themselves  their  knowledge ;  in  the 
sixteenth  century  they  were  eager  to  publish 
it,  and  glad  to  get  an  opportunity.!  Many 
seemed  to  think  that  they  were  under  moral 
obligation  to  give  freely  what  they  knew. 

Designing   and  engraving  were  relatively 
cheaper  than  they  are  now.  From  four  to  seven 
sous  was  the  price  for  designing  and  engraving 
a  beautiful  initial  letter,  not  to  be  had  as 
good  now  for  as  many  dollars.  What 
modern  publisher  would  hesitate  to 
engage  Van  den  Broeck  to  fur- 
nish the  elaborate  and  beautiful 
design,  "  Our  Lady  of  Seven 
Sorrows  "  (a  full  folio  page), 
at     the    price    of    six 


A  ROOM  IN  PLANTIN'S  HOUSE. 


florins  ?  For  his  superb  engraving  of  this  de- 
sign Plantin  overpaid  the  dissolute  Jerome 
Wiericx  ninety-six  florins.  The  usual  price 
of  the  brothers  Wiericx  for  engraving  a  plate 
of  folio  size  was  thirty  florins. 

All  the  materials  of  the  book  were  cheap. 
The  ordinary  paper  came  from  France  and 
cost,  according  to  weight  and  quality,  from 
twenty-four  to  seventy-eight  sous  a  ream. 
Even  the  large  vellum  skins  of  Holland, 
bought  for  the  "  Royal  Polyglot,"  cost  but 
forty-five  sous  the  dozen. 

He  paid  his  binders  for  the  labor  of  bind- 
ing (not  including  the  leather  or  boards)  an 
octavo  in  full  sheep  one  sou  for  each  copy ; 
for  a  quarto,  one  sou  and  a  half  to  two  sous ; 
for  a  folio,  in  full  calf,  from  seven  to  eleven 

t  Balzac  wrote  a  letter  to  Elzevir,  in  which  he 
thanked  Elzevir  effusively  for  his  piratical  reprint  of 
one  of  his  books.  Balzac  never  got  a  sou  from  this 
reprint,  not  even  thanks,  but  he  was  not  the  less 
grateful,  for  he  was  delighted  because  he  had  been 
introduced  in  the  good  society  of  the  great  authors, 
and  had  received  the  imprimatur  and  approval  of 
Elzevir. 


242 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


sous.*    Richly  gilt  books  were  paid  for   at    that  could  be  printed  to  profit.    To  this  could 


higher  prices,  but  miserably  small  they  seem 
as  compared  with  present  prices. 

If  Plantin  had  done  no  more  than  to  found 


be  added  the  poverty  and  the  sparseness  of 
readers.  All  the  popular  classic  texts,  and 
all  ordinary  forms  of  school  books  and  of 


a  large  printing-house,  he  would  deserve  no  devotional  books,  had  been  printed  so  many 
more  consideration  than  any  other  successful  times,  and  in  such  large  editions,  that  they 
trader  of  his  time.  He  was  not  an  ordinary  often  had  to  be  sold  for  little  more  than  the 
trader :  he  has  right  to  an  honorable  place  cost  of  the  white  paper.  Yet  Plantin  entered 
among  the  great  educators  of  his  century —  this  overcrowded  field  with  confidence.  His 
not  for  what  he  wrote,  but  for  what  he  had  books  of  devotion  were  more  carefully  printed 
written  or  created  for  him.  He  has  no  stand-  and  more  richly  illustrated  ;  his  school  texts 

were  more  carefully 
edited  and  more  in- 
telligently arranged. 
All  were  of  the  first 
order;  he  did  not 
pander  to  low  appe- 
tites ;  his  aims  were 
always  high  and  his 
taste  was  severe. 

Before  the  year  1567 
he  had  printed  many 
editions  of  the  Bible 
in  Latin,  Flemish,  and 
Hebrew.  By  far  the 
largest  part  of  the  read- 
ing of  the  sixteenth 
century  was  theolog- 
ical, and  Plantin  saw 
that  he  would  make 
his  greatest  success 
in  getting  an  ap- 
pointment as  the  rec- 
ognized or  official 
printer  of  the  liturgical 
books  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  His 
earliest  attempts  were 
beset  with  difficulties. 
He  had  to  solicit  the 
help  of  Cardinal  Gran- 
velle  and  Philip  II. 
The  permit  given  by 
the  pope  and  his  car- 
dinals was  grudgingly 
allowed  by  the  ec- 
clesiastical magnates  of  the  Netherlands. 
When  he  did  begin  to  print,  he  had  to  pay 


A    CORNER     OF     THE     COURT-YARD. 


ing  as  a  scholar  or  as  an  editor,  but  as  a 
publisher  he  outranks  all  his  contemporaries. 


He  printed  more  than  sixteen  hundred  edi-  ten  per  cent,  of  his  receipts  to  Paul  Manutius 
tions,  some  of  which  were  original  work  writ-  of  Rome,  who  held  the  privilege.  He  had  to 
ten  at  his  request.  His  greatest  production  petition  the  King  of  Spain  to  get  the  exclusive 
was  eighty-three  editions  in  1575,  and  the  privilege  he  desired  for  the  printing  of  the 
lowest,  twenty-four  editions  in  1576,  the  year  Church  on  Spanish  territory.  His  friend  Mon- 

tanus  told  the  king  that  Plantin's  prices  were 
more,  but  his  printing  was  better  than  that 
of  the  Italian  printers.  It  was  this  superior- 
ity in  workmanship,  as  well  as  in  business 
methods,  that  turned  the  scale  in  his  favor. 
Two  of  these  service  books,  the  great  Psalter 
and  the  Antiphonary  of  1571  and  1572.  are 
admirable  pieces  of  rubricated  printing.  For 


of  the  Spanish  Fury. 

One  of  the  difficulties  of  a  publisher  of  the 
sixteenth  century  was  the  scarcity  of  books 

*  M.  Rooses  appraises  the  real  or  purchasing  value 
of  silver  in  the  time  of  Plantin,  at  its  maximum,  at  four 
times  its  stamped  or  nominal  value.  By  this  standard 
the  sou  should  be  rated  as  equal  to  eight  cents  of 
American  money,  and  the  florin  as  equal  to  $1.60. 


A  PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


243 


many  years  the  printing  of  these  and  other 
books  kept  him  in  financial  embarrassment, 
but  the  result  demonstrated  the  wisdom  of 
his  foresight.  He  never  lived  to  enjoy  the 
fruits,  but  his  successors  were  made  rich  by 
a  monopoly  which  they  held  for  more  than 
two  hundred  years. 

Plantin's  printing  was  good,  but  it  has  been 
overpraised.  He  was  named  "  King  of  Print- 
ers "  at  a  time  when  the  duties  most  admired 
in  a  printer  were  those  of  editor  and  publisher. 
Here  he  was  grand.  His  purposes  were  always 
far  beyond  those  of  his  rivals;  great  folios, 
many  volumes,  large  types,  difficult  works  in 
little-known  languages,  "  lumping  patents " 
or  privileges,  profuse  illustrations  by  eminent 
artists — every  peculiarity  of  typography  that 
dazzled  or  astonished.  All  his  books  are  above 
mediocrity,  but  he  did  not  attain  the  highest 
rank,  either  in  his  arrangement  of  types  or 
in  his  press-work.  He  had  obscure  rivals  in 
France  and  the  Netherlands,  who  never  made 
showy  or  imposing  books,  but  who  did  better 
technical  work,  furnished  more  faultless  texts, 
and  showed  clearer  and  sharper  impressions 
from  types.  After  Balthazar  III.  a  decline  set 
in.  Some  of  the  later  books  of  the  house  are 
positively  shabby — a  disgrace  to  their  patent 
and  to  the  art. 

Was  Plantin  a  Catholic  ?  Prefaces  written 
by  him  in  some  books  are  fervid  with  pro- 
testations of  loyalty  to  the  old  Church.  Mon- 
tanus  and  Cardinal  Granvelle,  and  many 
prominent  ecclesiastics,  were  his  personal 
friends,  and  vouched  for  his  orthodoxy.  The 
suspicious  King  of  Spain  never  seems  to  have 
doubted  him,  not  even  when  he  went  to  Lou- 
vain,  that  home  of  heresy.  These  are  strong 
assurances ;  yet  he  was  often  denounced  as  a 
Calvinist:  he  printed  books  that  were  pro- 
scribed, and  for  which  he  lost  his  property. 
His  correspondence  with  heretics  proves  be- 
yond cavil  that  he  was  at  heart  a  member  of 
a  non-resisting  sect  not  unlike  that  of  the 
Friends, —  a  sect  which  taught  that  religion 
was  a  personal  matter  of  the  heart  and  life, 
and  not  at  all  dependent  on  churches,  creeds, 
or  confessions.  How  much  this  flexible,  non- 
resistant  faith  was  his  justification  for  the 
insincerity  of  his  professions  he  alone  can 
answer.  It  is  certain  that  he  was  insincere. 
He  was  not  the  stuff  martyrs  are  made  of. 

It  is  more  pleasant  to  turn  to  another  side 
of  his  character,  in  which  his  sincerity  is  above 
all  reproach.  To  the  last,  Plantin  was  true  to 
his  trade.  Too  many  successful  traders  make 
use  of  their  success  to  indulge  in  unsuspected 
propensities.  They  kick  away  the  ladder  they 
climbed  up  on ;  they  forswear  trade  and  ple- 
beian occupations ;  they  take  their  ease  and 
display  their  wealth  ;  they  build  mansions  and 


STATUETTE    OF    MADONNA    AND    CHILD,    OVER    CANDLESTICK 

IN    THE    PRESS-ROOM.       (FROM    AN    ETCHING    MADE 

FOR    THIS    ARTICLE    BY    OTTO    H.    BACKER.) 

buy  estates;  they  seek  social  distinction  for 
themselves  and  their  families.  From  this  vain- 
glory Plantin  was  entirely  free.  His  ambition 
began  and  ended  in  his  printing-house.  To 
form  a  great  office  worthy  of  the  king  of 
printers,  in  which  the  largest  and  best  books 
should  be  printed  in  a  royal  manner,  was  the 
great  purpose  of  his  life.  Neither  the  Span- 
ish Fury,  nor  the  siege  of  Antwerp,  nor  the 
destruction  of  the  great  city's  privileges  and 
commerce,  nor  the  king's  neglect,  nor  his  failure 
to  perpetuate  his  name  in  a  son,  nor  the  in- 
firmities of  old  age,  shock  his  purpose.  The 
future  fate  of  the  office  for  which  he  had  labored 
was  doubtful;  for  his  sons-in-law  were  not  in 
accord  with  one  another.  He  had  little  ready 
money  and  many  obligations.  He  had  only 
the  appearance  of  success ;  his  greatest  bequest 
was  the  means  by  which  unreached  success 
could  be  attained.  The  probabilities  were  that 
his  name,  fame,  and  estate  would  soon  disap- 
pear in  a  struggle  between  contentious  heirs ; 
but  with  all  the  odds  against  him,  he  did  carry 
his  point.  The  will  of  the  dying  old  man  had 
more  enduring  force  in  it  than  there  was  in  any 
decree  or  treaty  then  made  for  the  perpetuation 
of  the  Spanish  dynasty.  The  Plantin-Moretus 
house  outlived  the  Spanish  house  of  Hapsburg. 
For  more  than  three  centuries  the  printing- 


REPRODUCED    FROM    AN    ENGRAVING    BY    HENRI    GOLTZ1US. 
C.    PLANTIN. 


A   PRINTER'S  PARADISE. 


245 


office  was  kept  in  the  family  in  unbroken  line 
of  descent;  for  at  least  three  generations  it 
maintained  its  position  as  the  first  office  in  the 
world.  The  Plantin  types  and  presses  and 
office  are  still  the  pride  of  Antwerp,  but  the 
statue  of  the  king's  representative,  the  fierce 
Duke  of  Alva,  which  once  dominated  a  square 
in  the  city,  and  who  boasted  on  the  pedestal 
that  he  had  restored  order  and  preserved  re- 
ligion and  reconstructed  society,  was  long  ago 
overthrown.  No  overthrow  could  be  more  com- 
plete. It  was  not  merely  the  upsetting  of  statue 
or  dynasty,  but  of  the  foundations  of  medieval 
ideas  and  principles.  Plantin,  unwittingly  no 
doubt,  but  not  the  less  efficiently,  did  his  share 
in  bringing  down  this  thorough  destruction. 
The  books  which  he  and  others  printed 
aroused  the  mental  activity  and  inspired  the 
freedom  which  soon  made  the  Netherlands 
the  foremost  state  in  the  world.  Kings  die  and 
beliefs  change ;  the  bronze  statues  made  to  be 
imperishable  are  destroyed,  but  the  printed 
word  stands.  The  book  lives,  and  lives  forever. 
Horace  was  right :  it  is  more  enduring  than 
bronze. 

In  walking  through  the  Museum  the  eye 
does  not  weary  of  sight-seeing,  but  the  brain 
does  refuse  to  remember  objects  that  crowd 
so  fast.  To  remember,  one  must  rest  and  think 
of  what  he  has  seen.  It  is  a  relief  to  sit  down 
under  the  cool  arcade  and  look  out  on  the 
quiet  court,  and  think  of  the  men  who  trod 
these  stones.  For  here  Plantin  and  Moretus 
used  to  sit  in  the  cool  of  the  day ;  here  they 
matured  plans  for  great  books,  and  devised 
means  of  borrowing  money  to  pay  fast-coming 
obligations.  Was  the  end  worth  the  worry  ? 
Behind  those  latticed  windows,  obscured  with 
rampant  grape-vine  leaves,  the  great  Justus 


Lipsius  wrote  or  corrected  the  books  that  were 
the  admiration  of  all  the  universities  —  books 
now  almost  forgotten.  In  the  next  room 
Poelman  and  Kilianus  and  Raphelengius 
plodded'  like  wheel-horses  in  dragging  ob- 
scure texts  out  of  the  muddy  roads  in  which 
copyists  and  compositors  had  left  them.  Who 
thinks  of  them  now  ?  Through  that  doorway 
have  often  passed  the  courtly  Van  Dyke  and 
the  dashing  Rubens,  gay  in  velvets  and  glit- 
tering with  jewels.  They,  at  least,  are  of  the 
immortals.  Dignitaries  of  all  classes  have 
been  here :  patriarchal  Jewish  rabbis  and 
steeple-crowned  Puritans;  the  ferocious  Duke 
of  Alva  and  the  wily  Cardinal  Granvelle ; 
cowled  ecclesiastics  from  Rome  and  black- 
gowned  professors  from  Ley  den.  From  upper 
windows  not  far  away  Plantin's  daughters 
have  looked  out  in  terror,  on  the  awful  night 
of  the  Spanish  Fury,  as  they  heard  the  yells  of 
the  savage  soldiers  raging  about  the  court, 
and  listened  to  their  threats  of  "  blood  and 
flesh  and  fire,"  and  shuddered  at  the  awful 
fate  that  seemed  before  them.  Truly  a  sad 
time  for  the  making  of  books  or  the  cultiva- 
tion of  letters.  And  even  nine  years  after  this, 
the  boy  Balthazar  must  have  been  stopped  at 
study  by  the  roar  of  Farnese's  guns  during  that 
memorable  siege,  and  by  the  shrieks  of  the 
starving  defenders  of  the  doomed  city. 

The  evening  bell  sounds  its  warning :  it  is 
time  to  go.  At  our  request  the  obliging  con- 
cierge gives  us  a  few  leaves  from  the  grape- 
vine, and  we  take  our  places  in  the  outgoing 
procession.  Out  once  more  in  the  steaming 
streets —  out  in  the  confused  roar  and  clatter 
of  modern  city  life.  But  the  memory  of  the 
Museum  is  like  that  of  the  chimes  of  Ant- 
werp's great  cathedral — never  to  be  forgotten. 

Theo.  L.  De  Vinne. 


20 


• 

22 

Z 

-rl  ^ 

31      i        30                   29 

13 

25|     24 


PLAN   OF   THE   PLANTIN-MORBTUS    MUSEUM. 

The  Ground  Floor:     I.  2,  3,  Parlors  ;  4,  5,  Shops;  6,  Room  of  tapestries  :  7,  Room  of  the  correctors ;  8,  Office  ;  9,  Room  of  Justus  Lipsius;  10,  Lobby; 

ii.  Room  for  the  letters ;  12,  Printing-room  ;  X,  Porter's  lodge  :  Y,  Staircase  looking  out  on  the  court ;   Z,  Servants'  room,  etc.      First  Story  : 

*3i  I4>  Front  rooms;  15,  29,  30,  Library;  16,  18,  22,  Wood-engravings ;  17,  Lobby  ;  19,  Copper-plates  :  20.  24,  Parlors ;  21,  Room 

of  the  licenses  ;  23,  Room  of  the  Antwerp  engravers ;  25,  Rear  room  ;  26,  Sleeping-room  ;  31,  Hall  of  archives  ; 

X,  Reading-room  ;  Y,  Office  of  the  Director;  Z,  Staircase  leading  to  the  court. 


Vol..  XXXVI.— 35. 


